


Perl One, Columbia Stitch Two

by inuyashamunkey



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Boldly shipping, Coder!Matt, Computer Programming, Domestic Fluff, Fluff, Forehead Kisses, Gay Keith (Voltron), Gay Matt Holt, I'm not a programmer, Katt - Freeform, Keith (Voltron) is a Mess, Keith likes green tea, M/M, Matt likes Keith, No Keith never picked up his laptop, Programmer!Matt, So this is probably only passable by the skin of my teeth, Soft Keith (Voltron), coder!Keith, programmer!Keith, teaffeine's comics inspired this, the art came first is what im saying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-16
Updated: 2019-04-16
Packaged: 2020-01-15 00:00:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18487126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inuyashamunkey/pseuds/inuyashamunkey
Summary: Soft afternoons cursing Perl and cuddling with his boyfriend were all Keith really ever wanted in life.





	Perl One, Columbia Stitch Two

**Author's Note:**

> This is inspired by **Teaffeine!**
> 
> [Link one](https://www.instagram.com/p/BsS_GWDgLP5/)   
>  [Link two](https://www.instagram.com/p/BvD2urqgh0o/)

Spindly tendrils of light weaved through the cracks of the wooden shades drawn firmly over the expansive windows, casting the room in dim, golden light.

The room was quiet, for the most part. The only sounds were a faint but constant tapping of keys and the quiet stroke of socked feet on polished wooden flooring.

Keith sat on the floor towards the middle of the room with his legs bent at an angle and his laptop resting on his knees. His long torso was curved, putting his face mere inches away from the sun-bright screen, his lips moving in a silent mumble.

The code on his screen moved along in front of his eyes like a multi-colored snake, digitalized and chalky as it slithered along to Keith’s whims towards making something new. Even as his eyes drooped, his fingers were consistent in their speed. His exhaustion wrought mistakes from his fingertips but, still, he persisted; groundwork with minor mistakes, while essentially useless, was better than nothing.

The slipping of socks grew closer.

Long, slender arms came to wrap around his shoulders and he sighed, a small smile fitting to his lips. His fingers finally paused as he closed his eyes and leaned his head back, resting against the firm chest of his lover.

Lips in the shape of a smile pressed against his temple. He hummed contently as Matt ran a hand up his neck and through his hair, nimble fingers drawing through the knots at the top of his head while taking care in not undoing his four-day-old ponytail.

“How’s it goin’?” Matt asked, his fingers a gentle trail on his jaw.

Begrudgingly, Keith opened his eyes once more, leaning forward. Matt moved with him, straightening up until his chin rested on the crown of Keith’s head and his torso became a long line of warmth against his back. A frown tugged at his mouth as he stared hard at his work. “Perl is stupid.”

“It’s not that bad," Matt hummed.

Keith rolled his eyes. “This dude’s going to have a slow-running site because he decided that he  _needed_ the website programmed in Perl. Excuse the fuck out of me, but I thought  _we_ were the programmers—it’s not my problem if his ‘ _world_ - _class_ ’ nerds can’t read Java. Hell, I’d settle for C++ if I didn’t have to write this bullshit.”

Matt’s hand appeared in front of him, gently nudging his hands away from the brackets key and efficiently fixing an open line of code. Once he’d finished, he wrapped his arm around Keith's shoulders and pulled him to the side for a short kiss. “You should take a break. Crack open the camel book.”

Keith blinked hard, his eyes feeling like sandpaper beneath his lids. He sighed, looking at the clock at the corner of his screen. “I’m hungry.”

Matt laughed lightly. “Food’s already on its way.”

“You gorgeous life-saver,” Keith groaned, tipping his head back until his nose brushed the underside of Matt’s jaw, nudging.

Matt leaned down to meet him, his lips touching Keith’s softly. Keith pressed more insistently, opening his mouth to take Matt’s bottom lip between his own and deepening the kiss.

Matt’s hand caressed his neck as they kissed, rough finger pads a wonderful contrast against his smooth skin. Keith removed his hands from his laptop completely in order to entangle in his fingers into Matt’s scraggly orange hair.

Matt made a low noise into his mouth as he tugged on the strands, his fingertips pressing harder into Keith’s neck. As the kiss got more aggressive, Keith pulled harder, holding his lover’s hair in a grip that grew tighter by the second. Matt moved his hands from his neck, wrapping them around Keith’s waist and pulling them flush together—the motion was firm but gentle, always gentle.

Keith pulled away for only a moment to mutter, “Could do this forever.”

Matt’s laugh was nothing more than a puff of air over Keith’s lips. He pressed another kiss to his lips and spoke against them as he said, “We’d get in trouble.”

“Best kind.” Then they were kissing again, Keith wanting nothing more than to let his hands roam over every beautiful inch of his boyfriend. Sadly, the universe had other ideas.

The doorbell—The fucking  _doorbell_ —rang clearly through their apartment.

Matt started to move away and Keith opened his eyes to glare at the man. Still, he let his hair slip through his fingers. “No.”

Matt gave him a knowing look. “Not hungry then?” His smile widened at the sight of Keith’s pout. He gently flicked his nose. “Didn’t think so.”

Matt rubbed his sides before fully letting go. Keith set his laptop to the side as Matt made his way to the door to talk to the cock block of a delivery man.

A simple man such as himself was steadfastly unable to glare through a wall, but he gave it the old college try.

He heard Matt and the delivery person chatting at the door. He stood, wincing as his back straightened with loud pops and sickening cracks. He shook out his long-dead foot, opting to sit on the couch rather than test his luck walking on it.

Matt was finished a second later, walking back into the room with a Chinese takeout bag dangling from his fingers. He plopped it right onto Keith’s lap and looked down, brushing a socked toe against the side of his laptop. “Don’t leave that sitting there.”

Keith grunted his acknowledgment and turned his focus onto untying the knot someone had tied into the bag as Matt disappeared into the kitchen.

Over the rustling of the stupid takeout bag, Keith heard clinking in the kitchen accompanied by the opening and closing of cupboards.

Matt reappeared just as Keith had decided to tear a hole in the bag rather than waste more time trying to untie it. Matt dropped down on the couch next to him, handing over a can of chilled green tea.

Keith gladly took the drink, passing over the container of chow mein in return.

Soon, they were settled into their calm little bubble of comfort, eating and talking about their latest project for a new branch in the Garrison.

“I guess that’s one thing it’s been good for,” Keith muttered, wiping his mouth with a napkin.

Matt quirked a brow. “Other than readability that other languages lack?”

“Please,” Keith scoffed, “that’s just lazy.”

Matt twirled his fork into his chow mein noodles with a smile. “HTML doesn’t work any better with Perl than it does Java or Javascript.”

“Bull _shit.”_  Keith declared vehemently, roughly biting a piece of orange chicken off of his fork.

“What about JHTML? It’s made to integrate HTML and Java objects together smoothly.”

Keith gave him a dirty side-eye. “Do you  _want_ me to hate Perl?”

Matt took one look at his face broke down in unbidden laughter. It was hard for Keith not to smile as the display, even harder for him not to poke at Matt’s dimples as he rocked with giggles.

_Overreaction_ , Keith thought with a short roll of his eyes. Never let it be said Matt Halt did anything in halves.

Once Matt finally got a handle on himself, he waved a hand at Keith. “Perl does server-side scripting just like Java, you just have a complex.”

“Not as well,” Keith shot back. “It’s slow as hell and it’s a damn sin to write up a site in something like that.”

“It does better than Ruby or Python,” Matt mused, his eyes dancing. Keith narrowed his eyes at his boyfriend. Low blow, bringing Python into this.

“Debateable.” He stabbed another piece of chicken.

Matt seemed quietly pleased with himself and for a while, they sat in companionable silence, unhurried.

“You have to admit, though,” Matt said sometime later, “agile software development is easier when it reads like C than when it reads like Javascript.”

“I can’t believe I’m dating someone so  _lazy_.”

**Perl: 1 Keith:0**

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed!
> 
> [My Tumblr](https://one-trigger-lullaby.tumblr.com/)
> 
> [Teaffeine's Tumblr](https://teaffeine.tumblr.com/)


End file.
